Electronic devices are concerned with power management, energy consumption, evacuation of heat from, and delivery of heat to, key electronic components. As electronic devices become more sophisticated, alternative materials are sought to reduce weight, cost, and other factors affecting both price and performance.
There are many examples of thermally conductive thermoplastic compounds which are designed to evacuate heat from electronic components that require certain operating temperatures to be productive and efficient. For example, Therma-Tech brand products from PolyOne Corporation are engineered to transport heat away from a key component, such as a microprocessor.
However, there are some electronic devices that require the delivery of heat to key components. Examples of such electronic devices are certain electronic printing devices that require components to be of a certain temperature for delivery of colorants to the imaging media U.S. Pat. No. 6,905,201 describes the use of heat to melt a solid ink into a liquid ink in commercial graphics printers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,791 (Miller) discloses coatings and films of a non-metallic electrically conductive coating composition effective in emitting heat without break-down when connected to a source of electricity, which comprises: (a) a binder; (b) electrically conductive flake carbon black of particle size between about 5 and 500 micrometers; (c) electrically conductive flake graphite of particle size between about 5 and 500 micrometers; (d) a volatile solvent; wherein the weight amount of (b) and (c) together ranges from between about 10 and 75 weight percent based on the non-volatile solids content of the coating composition. U.S. Pat. No. 6,818,156 (Miller) also discloses coating and films using carbon-based materials having particle sizes in the nanometric and micrometric range for emitting heat.